Atlantic Bronze Age
Geographical rangeWestern Europe
PeriodBronze Age
Datesc. 1300 — c. 700 BC
Preceded byBell Beaker culture, Bronze Age Britain, Armorican Tumulus culture, Wessex culture
Followed byIron Age Britain, Iron Age Ireland, Iron Age France, Iron Age Spain

The Atlantic Bronze Age refers to a cultural complex of the Bronze Age period in prehistoric Europe, spanning approximately 1300–700 BC. This complex includes various cultures in Britain, France, Ireland, Portugal and Spain.

Trade

The Atlantic Bronze Age is characterised by economic and cultural exchange, resulting in a high degree of cultural similarity between coastal communities from central Portugal to Galicia, Armorica, Cornwall and Scotland. This is evidenced by the frequent use of stone as chevaux-de-frise, the construction of cliff castles and domestic architecture, sometimes characterised by roundhouses.[1] Trade contacts extended from Sweden[2] and Denmark to the Mediterranean.[1] The Bronze Age was characterised by distinct regional centres of metal production, linked by regular maritime trade. The main centres were in southern England and Ireland, north-west France and western Iberia.[3] Radiocarbon dating indicates that the Early Bronze Age began on the northern Iberian plateau in 2100 cal. BC while the late Bronze Age began in 1350 cal. BC.[4][5][6] Items associated with this culture are often found in hoards or deposited in ritual areas,[7][8] typically in watery contexts such as rivers, lakes and bogs. The cultural complex includes various items such as socketed and double-ring bronze axes, sometimes buried in large hoards in Brittany and Galicia. Military equipment such as lunate spearheads, V-notched shields and a variety of bronze swords, including carp-tongue swords, are usually found buried in lakes, rivers or rocky outcrops.[9] Elite feasting equipment such as spits, kettles and meat hooks[8][10] have also been found from central Portugal to Scotland.[1]

In 2008, John T. Koch attributed the origins of the Celts to this period.[11] This theory is supported by Barry Cunliffe,[12] who argues that Celtic developed as an Atlantic lingua franca before spreading to mainland Europe.[8] The authors argue that communities in the Late Bronze Age adopted elite status markers, such as grip-tongue swords and bronze sheet metalwork, from the Urnfield period (Bronze D and Hallstatt A). They also acquired new skills for their production and ritual knowledge about their proper treatment after deposition.[13] These changes may indicate processes related to language change.[13] In 2013, Koch suggested that the emergence of Celtic languages with a Proto-Celtic homeland in west-central Europe could be explained by elite contact from east to west.[14] However, this view contrasts with the more widely accepted view that Celtic origins are linked to the central European Hallstatt C culture.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Cunliffe, Barry (1999). "Atlantic Sea-ways" (PDF). Revista de Guimarães. Especial (I): 93–105. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 September 2015. Retrieved 20 September 2011.
  2. ↑ Ling, Johan; Stos-Gale, Zofia; Grandin, Lena; Billström, Kjell; Hjärthner-Holdar, Eva; Persson, Per-Olof (2014). "Moving metals II: provenancing Scandinavian Bronze Age artefacts by lead isotope and elemental analyses". Journal of Archaeological Science. 41: 106–132. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2013.07.018.
  3. ↑ Europe Before History by Kristian Kristiansen Archived May 8, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
  4. ↑ Marcos Saiz, F. Javier (2006). La Sierra de Atapuerca y el Valle del Arlanzón. Patrones de asentamiento prehistóricos. Editorial Dossoles. Burgos, Spain. ISBN 9788496606289.
  5. ↑ Marcos Saiz, F. Javier (2016). La Prehistoria Reciente del entorno de la Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos, España). British Archaeological Reports (Oxford, U.K.), BAR International Series 2798. ISBN 9781407315195.
  6. ↑ Marcos Saiz, F.J.; Díez, J.C. (2017). "The Holocene archaeological research around Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain) and its projection in a GIS geospatial database". Quaternary International. 433 (A): 45–67. Bibcode:2017QuInt.433...45M. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2015.10.002.
  7. ↑ Comendador Rey, Beatriz. "SPACE AND MEMORY AT THE MOUTH OF THE RIVER ULLA (GALICIA, SPAIN)" (PDF). Conceptualising Space and Place: On the role of agency, memory and identity in the construction of space from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Iron Age in Europe. Archaeopress. Retrieved 26 April 2011.
  8. 1 2 3 Cunliffe, Barry (2008). Europe between the oceans : themes and variations, 9000 BC-AD 1000 (First printed in paperback 2011. ed.). New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 254–258. ISBN 978-0-300-17086-3.
  9. ↑ Quilliec, Bénédicte T. (2007). "Vida y muerte de una espada atlántica del Bronce Final en Europa: Reconstrucción de los procesos de fabricación, uso y destrucción" [Life and death of an Atlantic sword: Reconstruction of the processes of fabrication, use wear and destruction]. Complutum (in Spanish). 18: 93–107. Retrieved 10 October 2019.
  10. ↑ Bowman, Sheridan; Stuart Needham (2007). "The Dunaverney and Little Thetford Flesh-Hooks: History, Technology and Their Position within the Later Bronze Age Atlantic Zone Feasting Complex" (PDF). The Antiquaries Journal. 87: 53–108. doi:10.1017/s0003581500000846. S2CID 161084139. Retrieved 22 September 2011.
  11. ↑ Koch, John (2009). Tartessian: Celtic from the Southwest at the Dawn of History in Acta Palaeohispanica X Palaeohispanica 9 (2009) (PDF). Palaeohispanica. pp. 339–351. ISSN 1578-5386. Archived (PDF) from the original on 23 June 2010. Retrieved 17 May 2010.
  12. ↑ Cunliffe, Barry (2008). A Race Apart: Insularity and Connectivity in Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 75, 2009, pp. 55–64. The Prehistoric Society. p. 61.
  13. 1 2 Brandherm, Dirk (2013). Celtic from the West 2 - Westward Ho? Sword-bearers and all the rest of it... Oxford: Oxbow Books. p. 148. ISBN 978-1-84217-529-3. Archived from the original on 21 January 2013.
  14. ↑ Koch, John T. (2013). Celtic from the West 2 -Prologue: The Earliest Hallstatt Iron Age cannot equal Proto-Celtic. Oxford: Oxbow Books. p. 10. ISBN 978-1-84217-529-3. Archived from the original on 21 January 2013.
  15. ↑ Gerloff, Sabine (1986). "Bronze Age Class A Cauldrons: Typology, Origins and Chronology". The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland. 116: 84–115.
  16. ↑ Barrowclough, David (2014). Bronze Age Feasting Equipment: A contextual discussion of the Salle and East Anglian cauldrons and flesh-hooks. Red Dagger Press, Cambridge. pp. 1–17.
  17. ↑ Armbruster, Barbara (2013). "Gold and gold working of the Bronze Age". The Oxford Handbook of the European Bronze Age. pp. 454–468.
  18. ↑ Armbruster (2016). "Manufacturing processes of Atlantic Bronze Age annular gold ornaments—A case study of the Guînes gold hard (Pas-de-Calais, France)". Materials and Manufacturing Processes. 32 (7–8): 728–739. doi:10.1080/10426914.2016.1232819. S2CID 114317154.
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